Problems With Dysfunctional Parents

Wednesday evenings, when the little one comes to stay over, have become the latest battlefield. And in the middle of the fight is a little girl, unable to defend herself, ill-equipped to cope, and thrown to the wolves.

Fighting parents appear as a factor in just about all the literature where children start showing signs of deviant behaviour – a simple Google search showed hundreds of thousands of hits, for example: Here and Here and Here

Then this morning I saw on facebook, on the SADSA page a quote that made me think. I am going to copy the quote with full acknowledgement – it is just too precious not to send it out to all fighting parents:

“Getting over someone you want to forget is easy enough. Getting over someone who is the other parent of your child is another mission.

I had no problem getting over the lying, the cheating, the dysfunctional behaviour. It was all just a relief to let go of it all. The hard part is witnessing a dysfunctional parent. Being reminded almost daily that you wish you children did not have to deal with an irresponsible, inconsistent and unreliable parent, yet, that too you must learn to let go and trust your children to decide what is best for them and how to deal with that parent, because a perfect, uneventful life is not going to equip them to discover their full potential. “The problem is not the problem; the problem is your attitude about the problem”

Therefore, instead of showing a sad photo, I’m choosing to show a picture of her during one of the happy moments I was privileged to share with her. And to remind me that my job, as the responsible parent, is to hold her hand when we are walking, not to carry her.

One Response to “Problems With Dysfunctional Parents”

And again, today, SADSA had the following to say:
“We all make mistakes and at any given time we would have made the mistake of putting our children in the middle of our divorce/separation conflict. It is forgiveable. Our children are incredibly resilient and forgiving! However, when we repeatedly involve them, we are no longer making a mistake, we are making the decision to keep them in the middle of our relationship conflict and this is unforgivable and shows that we are not taking responsibility!”
When you repeat a mistake, it is not a mistake anymore: It is a decision (Paulo Coelho)

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